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F or more than two weeks, the City of Baltimore has been reeling over the tragic death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a fatal spinal injury while riding in the back of a police van. He was arrested on April 12 and died one week later. The details surrounding his death are still unclear, though Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts has admitted that his officers left Gray unbuckled in the van despite being handcuffed and shackled. Batts also acknowledged that Gray’s multiple requests for medical attention were ignored. Mobile video footage from a bystander shows Gray crying out in pain before he was taken away. Peaceful demonstrations to demand justice for Freddie Gray and other victims of police brutality have been organized throughout Baltimore since Gray’s initial arrests. The movement against police brutality in the city did not start with Freddie Gray—citizens have been protesting harsh treatment by Baltimore police for years. Yet Gray’s death has been...

Twice a week for thirty minutes, fifth graders at KIPP Washington Heights, a charter school in New York City, attend “character class.” Each lesson is divided into three parts, according to Ian Willey, the assistant principal who teaches it. First, students find out what specific skill they’ll be focusing on that day. “This morning we’re going to learn how to set a long-term goal,” Willey might tell them. Next, students are asked to practice the skill. In this case, students may imagine they have a long-term project to complete, and then work to construct a timeline with incremental deadlines. In the final part of the lesson, students would take time to collectively reflect. “What was hard about this exercise?” Wiley might ask. “What went well? Did anyone feel nervous? What did you do when you felt nervous?” And because part of KIPP’s mission is to help build character, the students would then classify their new skill as one or more of KIPP’s seven targeted character goals . In this...

(AP Photo/Richard Drew) Ai-Jen Poo, center, Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, reads her statement at a Women for Paid Sick Days rally on the steps of New York's City Hall, Wednesday, July 18, 2012. A lmost two years after the Obama administration extended historic labor protections to the nation’s 1.79 million home health-care workers, those new rights remain in limbo. In September 2013, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced plans to amend a longstanding regulation that has excluded them from earning the federal minimum wage, overtime pay, and compensation for travel on the job. For home healthcare workers in the United States—a group that is nearly 90 percent female —this move marked a significant step towards setting a floor of decent labor standards. But the rule-change, which was set to go into effect on January 1, now faces a challenge in federal court, and critics say state legislators are using the ongoing litigation as an excuse to avoid...

(AP Photo/LM Otero, File) In this May 13, 2014 file photo, an auto worker inspects finished SUVs coming off the assembly line at the General Motors auto plant in Arlington, Texas. As General Motors tackles a safety crisis, a look at its numbers from June show just how intent the company is on keeping new-car sales on the rise during a record spate of safety recalls. S ome 46 million vehicles nationwide—nearly one in five on the road today—have a recalled, but unrepaired, safety issue. That’s because drivers, along with auto dealers and rental companies, have no legal obligation to fix safety recalls—a gaping regulatory loophole that puts millions at risk. For years lawmakers have more or less ignored the issue, until earlier this month, when Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Edward Markey introduced the Repairing Every Car to Avoid Lost Lives (RECALL) Act . The bill would require car owners to comply with all pending safety recalls in order to reregister their vehicles with...